Presidents Message
It is truly an honor to serve as President of the ASCE Louisiana Section for 2009-10. Started in 1914, the Louisiana Section has a proud tradition and it is a privilege to be counted among those who have served before me. Following past convention, I will strive to leave the Section a little better off than I found it. This will be hard to accomplish because I have had the pleasure of serving on the Board with several very dedicated Presidents. Timothy Ruppert, E. Ray DesOrmeaux and Ali Mustapha each served the Louisiana Section with distinction and I will endeavor to match their excellent leadership. Also, I wish to congratulate the entire Section Board on their recent installation. This is not a job that can be performed by a single person. It is just my turn at the helm and I look forward to working with the Board and each Branch to serve our profession.		Christopher P. Knotts, PE
The Annual Officer’s Installation and Section Awards meeting was held on September 18, 2009 at Juban’s Restaurant in Baton Rouge. The 2009-10 Section Officers were installed by Mr. Charles Eustis, PE, Past Section President. Patrick Landry, PE, President Elect emceed the Section’s Awards presentation portion of the meeting. As usual, Patrick did an excellent job of making each award recipient and their family feel especially honored with a personal touch to the ceremony. There were eleven awards presented with recipients representing all four Branches in the Section. Ten of the eleven award recipients (or their families) were present at the luncheon to receive their award, which I believe is a record. I wish to convey my congratulations to all the award recipients for being recognized for your efforts and dedication to the Civil Engineering profession. This marks the second Installation and Section Awards meeting that has been hosted by the home Branch of the incoming President. The Board adopted this policy in 2008 to give each Branch’s membership an opportunity to participate in the ceremony and hopefully see how the Section interacts with and can benefit the Branches. I believe the 73 people that attended this year’s lunch meeting proved that this was a good decision by the Board. I wish to express my thanks to the Baton Rouge Branch leadership for hosting an excellent meeting. As I begin my year as President, I finish what I consider to be a very productive year as President Elect and Publications Committee Chairman. With the “retirement” of Mr. James Porter as Journal Editor, the job of Publications Committee Chairman became much more than it had been for the previous 14 years. Mr. Porter handled everything associated with the journal during his tenure, which is no small endeavor. I am not the first to say this, but thank you Jim for your years of service to the Section and the Civil Engineering profession. With the assistance of our new editor, we managed to figure out how to continue the publishing tradition of excellence that the Section has come to expect. The details of publishing the journal, the quest for interesting articles and the challenges of generating advertising revenues were all very interesting to me. I hope everyone found the 2008-09 Louisiana Civil Engineer Journals informative and useful. I am confident that as Patrick Landry steps into the role of Publication Committee Chair he will continue to make improvements to our excellent publication. The Section publishes the Journal and maintains a website (www. lasce.org) as sources of information and services for our membership. You may already know that our newsletter has been recognized as one of the best in ASCE, as evidenced by our 2008 Outstanding Newsletter Award for Large Sections. We have submitted our 2008-09 journal issues for 2009 Outstanding Section and Branch Newsletter Award consideration. We have also submitted our website for consideration of a national award. If we are lucky, Patrick Landry will be collecting awards in February at the Section and Branch Leaders Workshop in Atlanta. In recent years, several Branches have been successful in garnering State Public Affairs Grants (SPAGs). These have resulted in billboards, radio spots and civil engineering related materials distributed into classrooms. ASCE awards Small Grants (up to $1500) and Large Grants (between $1500 and $7500). Branch leadership is busy preparing those proposals so that the Section can submit them to National prior to the October 30, 2009 deadline. Historically, the Section has provided funds to make up the difference when National has not fully funded proposals because this is an important part of our stewardship to Civil Engineering. Good luck to all our Branches! In closing my first President’s message, it is exciting to report that much information is already flowing from ASCE National to me on several issues. This month will be filled with many first. I have just completed my first Board of Director’s meeting agenda and scheduled the years’ Board meetings. I pledge to serve the Louisiana Section to the best of my ability and I look forward to a challenging and productive year.